By:Rebecca Shalomoff
Hewlett-Woodmere School District officials planning to launch a Universal Pre-Kindergarten program were disappointed to find out that they will not get the money for it. The State Legislature passed a $79.6 billion bare-bones budget that lacks additional school aid and funding for new programs.
Basically we are not happy that this is happening,said Dr. Karen Chapman, Hewlett-Woodmere's assistant superintendent of business. We were counting on that money.
The $300,000 in state aid that school officials were counting on to fund the district's cooperative pre-kindergarten program at the Franklin Early Childhood Center would have enabled them to hire more teachers and provide a morning and afternoon program without cost for all 4-year-olds.
We can only proceed if we are funded by the state,superintendent Dr. Charles Fowler said.
The state is expected to pass a complete budget by March 30, 2002. The legislature has not passed a budget in two stages since the 1980s, but the four-month stalemate in negotiations this year has compelled legislators to return to the two-part process to give, what they believe, is some stability to the districts, said Robert Loretan, executive director of the New York State Council of Superintendents.
But the bare-bones budget forces districts to play guessing games with expected state money at the expense of taxpayers and school programs.
The first part of the budget provides $14.1 billion for public schools, an increase of $382 million over last year's budget. Although it fails to allocate thousands of dollars District 14 usually receives for BOCES programs, Chapman said, I don't think we need to panic right now. Our district is better off than most.
Universal Pre-K's roots
Governor George Pataki started the Universal Pre-Kindergarten program in 1998 to provide more state aid for youngsters. In the beginning, only the most needy districts in the state could be eligible for funding. The 2001-2002 school year was the first time that a wealthy district like Hewlett-Woodmere was able to apply for it.
Currently, the district has two components to their Pre-Kindergarten program. An Experimental Pre-K, which was adopted 35 years ago, provides completely for economically disadvantaged children in the district.
Those who are not eligible for complete coverage, participate in the cooperative program, where the district provides for only one two and half hour session of class, either in the morning or afternoon, but not both. Parents must pay for their children to stay an additional session.
Last year, there were 172 children in the pre-k program: 34 in experimental pre-kindergarten and 138 in cooperative, with 19 children per class.
The Universal Pre-K would have replaced the cooperative program, with state aid expected to go towards providing for the more than 140 children enrolled this year.
As for the children in Experimental Pre-K, assistant principal of Franklin Early Childhood Center Estelle Shafran said, Those children are already provided for.
As with all state funding there are requirements the district must comply with in order to receive it.
This money would have to first meet the needs of the required components,she said. There were only two requirements that the current program did not meet, namely, the hiring of speech, occupational, and physical therapists as well as a multilingual teacher for children whose primary language is not English.
The last requirement of the state is that the district give at least 10 percent of the funds they receive to a private agency in their district with a similar pre-k program. The private agency must meet the same state requirements as the district and cannot teach religion or hold the program in a room where a religious symbol is present.
